Tip Top is an

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as str ...

brand founded in 1936 in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and now owned by

Froneri Froneri is a global ice cream manufacturer with its headquarters in Leeming Bar, North Yorkshire, England. It is the largest producer of ice cream in Europe by volume, and the second-largest in the world, after Unilever. Froneri was establishe ...

(a joint venture between

PAI Partners PAI Partners is a French private equity firm based in Paris, France. It is one of the oldest firms in the sector, with its origins dating back to Paribas Affaires Industrielles, the historical principal investment activity of Paribas, which sta ...

and

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

). It was formerly known as Fonterra Brands (Tip Top) Ltd, a subsidiary of the Fonterra Co-operative Group based in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

History

In 1936 Albert Hayman and

Len Malaghan Leonard Aloysius Patrick Malaghan (18 February 1906 – 25 December 1967) was a New Zealand dairy factory manager, ice-cream manufacturer, businessman and benefactor. He was born in Queenstown, Central Otago, New Zealand on 18 February 1906. He ...

opened their first ice cream parlour in Manners Street,

, followed in the same year by two more milk bars, one in Wellington and one in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

. The ''Tip Top Ice Cream Company'' was registered as a manufacturing company in 1936. By 1938 Tip Top was manufacturing its own ice cream and was successfully operating stores in the lower half of the North Island, and in

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

and Blenheim. Tip Top Ice Cream conference in Wellington

In May 1938 ''Tip Top Ice Cream Company Auckland Limited'' was incorporated into the growing ice cream business. Due to distribution difficulties and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, this was operated as a completely separate company to the Wellington Tip Top. In November 1962, Hayman and Malaghan opened the biggest and most technically advanced ice cream factory in the Southern Hemisphere, built at Mount Wellington,

, New Zealand. The Tip Top factory included staff houses and of farm land overlooking the Southern Motorway and cost NZ$700,000. Prime Minister

Keith Holyoake Sir Keith Jacka Holyoake, (; 11 February 1904 – 8 December 1983) was the 26th prime minister of New Zealand, serving for a brief period in 1957 and then from 1960 to 1972, and also the 13th governor-general of New Zealand, serving from 1977 ...

attended the opening ceremony. By 1960 the Company had expanded to such an extent that a parent company was formed, ''General Foods Corporation (NZ) Limited''. The Auckland Tip Top factory was originally a seasonal factory, which worked only to produce ice cream for the summer months. They sold for a shilling, and early innovations led to ice cream inventions like Topsy, Jelly Tip, FruJu and Ice Cream Sundaes. The commercial success of these products transformed the Mt Wellington site into a 24-hour, year-round operation. As demand grew over the years, 2 further plants were opened in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

and

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

. In the year 1991 the

factory was specially designed to meet the stringent export requirements of the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese market. In 1985 New Zealand

supermodel A supermodel, also spelled super-model or super model, is a highly paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in ''haute couture'' and commercial modeling. The term ''supermodel'' became prominent in the po ...

Rachel Hunter Rachel Hunter (born 8 September 1969) is a New Zealand model, actress and the host of Imagination Television's ''Rachel Hunter's Tour of Beauty''. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including ''Vogue'', ''Elle'', ''Rolling Stone'', ' ...

appeared for the first time on television in an advertisement for Tip Top Trumpet in the year 1985, which also helped to launch her career. In April 1997

Heinz Watties Heinz Wattie's Limited (or simply Wattie's) is a New Zealand-based food producer of frozen and packaged fruit, vegetables, sauces, baby food, cooking sauces, dressings and pet foods in the New Zealand market. History Founded in 1934 by Sir Jame ...

sold Tip Top to a

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

n food processor, Peters & Browne's Foods. This merger of Peters & Browne's and Tip Top created the largest independent ice cream business in the Southern Hemisphere with combined sales of $550 million. Four years later in June 2001, New Zealand's national dairy co-operative

Fonterra Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational publicly traded dairy co-operative owned by around 9,000 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exce ...

bought Tip Top Ice Cream after purchasing the Peter and Browne's Foods Business. In 2007 the Christchurch Factory was closed with all production moving to Auckland. In 2019 Fonterra sold Tip Top for $380 million to UK-based company

, a joint venture owned by

and

, citing a conflict of interest between Fonterra being a dairy nutrition company and Tip Top being a confectionery business. In October 2022, Tip Top discontinued two flavours of ice cream including the Cookies & Cream flavour that had just won a national award in the previous month, to considerable public outcry in New Zealand.

Operation

At the time of the 2019 sale to Froneri, Tip Top produced around 41 million litres of ice cream a year. Tip Top Ice Cream is exported to Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands.

List of Tip Top brands

Pre 1950s

* Tip Top Ice cream available in quarts (1 litre approx) and pints (600ml approx) *

Eskimo Pie Edy's Pie (formerly known as Eskimo Pie) is an American brand of chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar wrapped in foil. It was the first such dessert sold in the United States. It is marketed by Dreyer's, a division of Froneri. In wake of the ...

(Tip Top's first novelty product) * Topsy (first stick icecream produced by Tip Top)named after a cow

1950s

* Jelly Tip * Rocky Road * Toppa * TT2's * Joy Bars

1960s

* Trumpet * Fruju * Moggy man * Tip Top Ice cream available in plastic 2 litre container

1970s

* Popsicle * R2D2 Iceblock * Choc Bar

1980s

* Crofters Cheesecakes * Goody Goody Gumdrops * Batman * Hokey Bar (with heart of gold)

1990s

* Memphis Meltdown * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (in a 2-litre bowl with the ice cream resembling one of the turtles) * Moritz * Cadbury Ice Cream range (in 2 litre bowls and novelty cones) * Sonic the Hedgehog Milk Ice * Paradiso * Jelly Tip in two litre tub

2000s

* Popsicle Creamy (previously Chill) * Screwball * Soft Serve * Plus many more flavour additions and variations on historically produced Ice Creams. * Popsicle Milky * Popsicle Fruity * Popsicle Slushy * Ronald McDonald ice cream * Cone Ball * Choc bar * Fruju - Pineapple * Jelly Tip

References

External links

Tip Top official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tip Top (Icecream) Food manufacturers of New Zealand Dairy products companies of New Zealand Froneri Ice cream brands